Aaron Krish has always been an avid gamer since the young age of 12. His parents would always have to remind him to drop his Super Nintendo console and focus on his studies. Little did they know that 16 years later, Aaron would have a chance to do more in the gaming industry, by designing and publishing his own video game.

The opportunity to delve deeper into the gaming industry was an opportunity provided to Aaron by Temasek Polytechnic (TP) in partnership with the Singapore Media Development Authority (MDA). The eight-week internship program at the world-renown Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) saw Aaron working on a side-scrolling, two-dimensional platform game called Afterland.

"I've always wanted to design my own video game and TP made this a reality," said Aaron. Aaron joined TP in 2009 after finding out that the polytechnic offered a game development course. "I've heard others say that video games are a waste of time. But they're created by intelligent people. Plenty of thought, planning and engineering goes into them," says Aaron, "it's a real challenge crafting well-written storylines, designing visually appealing graphics and creating games that are playable and educational."

Afterland was published in October last year under the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Labs. The five-year research initiative supported by MDA that addresses important challenges faced by the global digital game research community and industry.